Friday, May 18, 2012

Childhood hunger is everywhere even right here in our own country. As parents in today's world more than ever we are facing the hard truth of how they we are going to feed our families. We live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world so ensuring that our children don't go hungry should be of the utmost importance.

Please if you are classed with the fortunate percentage of Americans that have two incomes, are well off, or think that you will always be able to feed your children STOP! We are prime examples of this scenario. We got engaged, bought a home, and had our first child all within a few short years. My husband and I both had decent paying jobs and never assumed that one or both incomes would ever be lost. BOY WERE WE WRONG! Before I continue I do need to state that I am a walking medical case that seems to always have some disease or sickness. With that said about 6 months into our engagement I received a call from the doctor informing me that I had stage one cervical cancer! Yes the dreaded "C" word!!! We were beyond devastated especially since we where already warned it would be difficult for me to get pregnant if I even could due to my Endometriosis. While we were planning our wedding we found out that I would be needing a hysterectomy (at 23 years of age) and that if we wanted to have any children to start ASAP.

DH and I had a lengthy discussion about what we both wanted and how we were going to handle this awful news. After all was looked at in every direction we chose to try and get pregnant.

In the meantime we tried and tried with no such luck. Then about a month and a half after our wedding it finally happened. We were pregnant and having a healthy baby boy. This was a HUGE blessing for us!

Since we had decided that we were only going to one the doctor scheduled a date for my surgery. Just a little over a year later my Idiopathic GastroParesis started horribly acting up. I was diagnosed 12+ years until one day it decided to become 1000x worse.

I now am trying to live a somewhat normal life since the only way they could help me especially since they don't a cure for it yet. To make me less symptomatic they gave me both a Jtube and Gtube. Oh and how can I forget a gastric pacemaker.

Enough about all my health issues back to the story at hand. My symptoms caused me to loss my job and left my husband as the only caregiver. This alone was devastating to me especially as a mother to always be able to help support my family. There were plenty of times we had absolutely no food in our house and even if we did it went to DS. We were struggling so much that we had to apply for food stamps, WIC etc. to be able to feed our family.

I guess this is why the Share Our Strength is near and dear to my heart.

Did you know?...

More than 16 million children in America are at risk of hunger. That’s more than 1 in 5.

15.7 million children in America live in poverty.

18.6 million children benefit from SNAP (food stamps).

Over 20 million children get a free or reduced-price school lunch on an average school day.

Only 10.5 million children get a free or reduced-price school breakfast on an average school day.

6 out of 7 children who qualify for a free or reduced-price school lunch do not currently access free summer meals.

• This spring and summer, members of Congress will be working on the reauthorization of the Farm Bill, legislation that provides funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, and the largest nutrition program in the Farm Bill.

These cuts could reduce, or even eliminate, millions of Americans’ access to SNAP benefits, forcing families across the country to go hungry.

• SNAP also provides important economic benefits to communities across the country. For every SNAP dollar spent, $1.79 is returned to the economy. As our economy slowly begins to recover, now is not the time to cut programs that help local businesses and families.

• A family of 4 making less than $23,000 net income qualifies for SNAP.

If you would like to get involved and/or pledge head over to ShareOurStrength to get more info about how you go about helping this great cause.

17 comments:

Randi,like many of us you ended up in a situation you never expected. It wasn't 'your fault' (like there's ever fault involved in most cases!)yours was like mine, what one doctor called "my bad luck." It's for people like you, some of the other PSMMs who have posted, and yes, me and my children, that we all need to make those phone calls to our representatives and senators. Wishing you better health for your future. Thanks for sharing. Hopefully our stories will make a difference.

Jo-Lynne you said it best you "had no idea" I think that is why this is something I feel so compelled to change. Especially since most Americans HAVE NO IDEA what others go through. I would scream my story from the rooftop if I thought it would wake up the person who is at work thinking to themselves "Oh that would NEVER happen to me or my family"!

You're right, you can never know what the future holds. Instead of condemning SNAP and other assistance programs we should be thrilled that we live in a country that can afford to help those down on their luck. Best wishes to you!

Randi, it's so brave of you to share your own story! I hope by doing so you are able to 1) help others in a similar situation feel less alone and 2) help others understand how this can happen and be more open and willing to help.